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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'A more-willing baptism',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2019/04.jpg" alt="The church from behind" class="framed-centred-image" width="800" height="480"/>
<section id="diet">
	<h2>Dietary intake</h2>
	<p>
		For breakfast, I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
		My celery is starting to get floppy, so for lunch (557 grams) and dinner (339 grams), I made a soup that was mostly celery, but also had potatoes to sustain me a bit.
		I was foolish to think a soup made mostly of celery would be enough though, and ended up eating the other half of a chocolate bar I&apos;ve had in my wallet for a couple weeks.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		My discussion posts for the day:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			I completely agree that security is vital and should be kept in mind from the get-go.
			It&apos;s just not safe to try to tack on security as an add-on feature later in development.
			Then again though, I&apos;m a part of the encrypt everything, use $a[Tor] everywhere, and don&apos;t trust sourceless binaries crowd, so of course I&apos;d say that.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Wow.
			That&apos;s a startling statistic.
			Almost half of enterprises have no employees in charge of database security?
			Statistics are easily moulded to make even the exact opposite of the truth appear true though, so I have to wonder a few things.
			Does this include enterprises that outsource their database needs?
			Technically, they have no one in charge of database-related things of any sort in that case.
			Does that include enterprises without databases?
			Most probably have databases of some sort, but there&apos;s likely many that don&apos;t.
			There&apos;s also the source to consider.
			A survey was conducted on employees, and these employees reported there being no one in charge of database security.
			They may have misunderstood the question or not been in the know.
			For example, if one person is in charge of everything database-related, including database security, the respondent may not have counted them because they weren&apos;t in charge of <strong>*only*</strong> database security.
			They weren&apos;t a dedicated security professional, but they were still very much in charge of database security.
			And like I said, the respondent may have <strong>*thought*</strong> than no one was in charge of database security when there actually was someone, or even an entire team, because that simply wasn&apos;t their department and they hadn&apos;t heard about database-related security things going on.
		</p>
		<p>
			Honestly, I&apos;m guessing this statistic paints an accurate picture.
			Companies don&apos;t spend on what they think they can get away with not spending on, so there probably are a huge number of companies not spending on database security teams to save a quick buck.
			Still, it&apos;s worth considering that they statistics might be rather skewed.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="baptism">
	<h2>Baptism ceremony</h2>
	<p>
		The opening hymn this time stood out.
		It said that because we&apos;re children of Elohim, our needs are great.
		In other words, Elohim created us specifically to be needy.
		It&apos;s like he wants to feel needed, and that&apos;s why he created us.
		It wasn&apos;t for our own benefit, but for his.
		It was also said that we need to learn to understand his words before it&apos;s too late.
		So we&apos;ve got a time limit here, and of course, he&apos;s not going to reveal himself so we even know which religion to follow.
		Most people aren&apos;t going to make it in time.
		But make it to what?
		And what&apos;s our deadline?
		After the ceremony, one of the missionaries told me that Alma 34 would help me understand.
		There&apos;s no time to read that today, but hopefully when I get there, it&apos;ll clear things up.
	</p>
	<p>
		After the hymn came the opening prayer.
		Nothing really stood out to me in the prayer this time.
	</p>
	<p>
		Next, a talk was given on baptism.
		We were reminded that without baptism, one can&apos;t enter the kingdom of heaven.
		That leaves me wondering where the unbaptised go, as supposedly, everyone on earth goes to heaven.
		Maybe I&apos;ll remember to ask the missionaries about that, but I probably won&apos;t.
		We were also told the three promises made via baptism.
		That was of great interest to me.
		I&apos;d heard that sacrament is a way to renew your covenants with Jesus from baptism, but what exactly did you promise to do?
		First, you promise to take on the name of Jesus.
		Unless you&apos;re calling yourself Jesus, I&apos;m not sure exactly that that actually means.
		Second, you promise to follow his commandments.
		It&apos;s real one-sided; you promise to do what he says, but also, he&apos;s the one that picks your rewards for doing so.
		He holds all the decisions and all the cards.
		And third, you promise to always remember him.
		The speaker also said that sacrament is a time when we should reflect on our mistakes and what we&apos;ve done wrong during the week.
		Even as a non-believer, it seems like something I&apos;d like to do.
		I do make plenty of mistakes, just not the ones the church thinks I do.
		What they see ans a mistake and what I see as a mistake are radically different.
		Reflecting weekly could help me improve myself, though again, what I see as being in need of improvement doesn&apos;t match the church&apos;s view.
		We were also informed that we&apos;d feel the Holy Spirit during the baptism.
		For the record, I felt nothing out of the ordinary.
		If the Spirit was making me feel anything, it was way too faint to even be noticeable.
	</p>
	<p>
		This baptism went much smoother than the last one I saw.
		Of course, that was highly related to what kind of baptism it was.
		This was a convert baptism.
		In a child of record baptism, the child may or may not actually want to be there.
		In a convert baptism, the baptee has specifically <strong>*chosen*</strong> to be there.
		They <strong>*want*</strong> to go through with the baptism, so they&apos;re not going to struggle against it.
		Furthermore, if they did struggle, these people are adults and would have an easier time escaping.
		But again, even getting them to the building would require kidnapping, which would be both difficult and illegal.
	</p>
	<p>
		The baptist messed up the baptism prayer, and had to redo it.
		From the sounds of it, they left out a single word.
		This really is a church that cares more about the ritual than what the ritual stands for.
		If you say a word out of place, you&apos;ve got to start over, instead of continuing on given that the sentiment is the same.
		Personally, I&apos;m a person of principle.
		Intent is just about everything to me.
		This is just one more way in which I don&apos;t fit in with these people.
	</p>
	<p>
		After the baptism, the family of the baptee handed out cards and asked attendees to write encouraging notes to the baptee on them.
		They wanted to make sure the baptee remembered this day always.
		I struggled, but eventually found the right words to be encouraging without promoting the religion.
		Still, though, did I do wrong by filling one out?
		Should I have declined?
		Just the mere act of filling one out, no matter what I wrote, encourages participation in this false religion.
		(That is, unless I actively bashed the religion at least a little in what I wrote, which I didn&apos;t.)
	</p>
	<p>
		After the card-filling, a quartet sang a religious song, accompanied by a fifth person on the piano.
		I don&apos;t think the song was a hymn; it didn&apos;t seem to be the right style of melody for that.
		Unlike hymns though, it was very pleasant to listen to.
		Partly, anyway.
		The melody was gorgeous, as were parts of the lyrics.
		But other parts really highlighted one of the paradoxes of the church.
		It claimed that Jesus calls out in a humble voice to follow him, but there&apos;s nothing humble about it.
		It&apos;s follow me or don&apos;t get eternal happiness.
		He offers great reward for following and severe punishment for not following.
		He views his way as the only way.
		True or not, that&apos;s not humble.
		That&apos;s conceit.
	</p>
	<p>
		Next, someone gave a talk on the Holy Ghost.
		The gift of the Holy Ghost is the privilege of a person that&apos;s been baptised after they&apos;ve been confirmed a member of the church.
		There&apos;s no getting this privilege to try it out before becoming a member.
		You join the church with no evidence anything will be different or you get nothing.
		Did I say &quot;or&quot;?
		It&apos;s probably also &quot;and&quot;.
		There&apos;s no reason to believe there even is a Holy Ghost, or any other kind of ghosts, so there&apos;s no reason to believe people joining the church actually get what&apos;s promised to them.
		Also, they have an explanation for if you can&apos;t convince yourself that you feel the Holy Ghost: you must just not be worthy.
		If you&apos;re not worthy, the Holy Ghost just won&apos;t talk to you.
		Also, by the power of the Holy Ghost, you&apos;re able to find the truth of everything.
		Right.
		A being no one can verify is anything more than mythology is able to make the truth known, just like he makes the truth of his existence known.
		The rest of the talk felt like a series of misattributions.
		In one instance, a case of intuition was written off as not being self-preservation instinct, but rather, the voice of the Holy Ghost.
		In another instance, the Holy Ghost supposedly kept saying that someone needed to fill an empty role was right there in from of the person it was said to.
		This went on for a couple months, where the Holy Ghost kept claiming the person needed to fill the role was right there, but there was no one.
		Eventually, it was said in the presence of someone, and that person was asked to fill the role.
		So eventually, they found the needed person, but the Holy Ghost had been claiming them to be there all along even though they&apos;d just met at the end.
		What?
		This is your all-knowing Spirit?
		They also found a pair of lost dogs for a relative, and gave credit to finding them to Jesus, not taking credit fort their own positive actions.
		Because, y&apos;know, we&apos;re not capable of doing good.
		Jesus just works through us to do good.
		We&apos;re only tools of the lord; that&apos;s all we are.
		They ended by telling us that if we struggle to know that Jesus is listening and that he cares, we should just ask him.
		He&apos;ll respond.
		But of course, when I was praying, he never did respond, because he&apos;s imaginary.
	</p>
	<p>
		After the speech, the baptee was welcomed to the service unit associated with their gender.
		They were told that one of the best experiences in life is to serve together with people.
		So am I just denied this experience, even if I did join the church?
		I&apos;m not of either of the binary genders for which they have their segregated service units for.
		Even if they had one for non-binary people, I might be the only one in the church, so it wouldn&apos;t exactly be serving together with people.
		And why do the units need to be segregated anyway?
	</p>
	<p>
		I forget who said it (it was probably the bishop), but someone told us all that we need to be committed to the church at all times.
		It&apos;s not enough to spend some time toward helping the church.
		You&apos;ve got to commit your whole self, your entire soul, to serving the church.
		So ... you get no time and energy for your own endeavours?
		What kind of life is that!?
		Not one that&apos;s worth living, that&apos;s for sure.
		After that, there was the closing hymn and closing prayer.
	</p>
	<p>
		After the service, I spoke with one of the missionaries; not one of the regulars to my home, but one of the others that&apos;s been over recently.
		It was this missionary that told me I could find more information on the opening hymn in Alma 34.
		They also had wanted to talk to me because of what I&apos;d found before about Adam and Eve not having been told to be fruitful and multiply.
		I&apos;d piqued their interest, so they tracked down what verse it was in which Adam and Ever were given this commandment.
		It turns out it&apos;s not in the bible, but in the Pearl of Great Price.
		It contains the Book of Moses, which is basically a rewrite of part of Genesis.
		In Moses 2, Adam and Eve are told to be fruitful and multiply so as to replenish the earth.
		Replenish.
		As in, something has been depleted, and they&apos;re restoring the supply.
		They&apos;re bringing back what once was.
		That makes no sense if they were the first people, and I pointed that out to the missionary right away.
		Noah could replenish the earth because the earth was full of people before the flood.
		It violates logic for Adam and Eve to replenish the earth through breeding though unless they weren&apos;t the first people.
		I think I&apos;m going to enjoy reading the Book of Moses and finding all the oddities, though I need to finish with the bible first.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="purse">
	<h2>Matching purses</h2>
	<p>
		At work, I helped a customer that had the same purse as me.
		I kind of wanted to comment such, but worried they&apos;d think I was a weirdo or something.
		I&apos;m a bit self-conscious.
		Things will be better in that regard when my body&apos;s fixed up a bit.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
